Don’t Look Now…

“And I said on my program, if, if the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it’s clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again, all right?”

Bill O’Reilly
Good Morning America – March 18, 2003

He also promised to resign if tons of weapons weren’t found. Straightforward, unblushing, balls-to-the-wall. I guess that’s why he’s the one inside the television.

Which leads me to a hypothesis: people who enjoy mechanized death spectacle also enjoy being lied to.

As Kevin Drum points out, most of what this administration says is reversed in actual policy. Two possible explanations for this are rank stupidity or a massive hidden plan which is too sinister to be clearly perceived.

But maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe the “conservative base” just really enjoys getting flat out lied to. Maybe they get a deep in the gut visceral pleasure when things like “9/11” and “bomb Iraq” finally blur together in one fuzzy image of flaming buildings.

What’s also interesting is how the truth is obliquely described by the symbolism in these lies. For example, “MO-AB!” — the massive new bomb which used Iraq 2 as it’s product rollout. The name comes from the Old Testament.

Moab was one of Lot’s sons, a member of the only family that God spared from the destruction of Soddom and Gommorah with heavenly fire. The Lot clan was under stern orders not to look back at the burning cities, but Lot’s wife took an unfortunate glance over her shoulder at the ashes of her friends and former life, so God turned her into a pillar of salt. Moab did not look back at the burning cities, and he lived happily ever after.

The MOAB bomb was used as an emblem for righteous heavenly vengeance upon the new Soddom/Saddam, but this time, everyone was supposed to stare directly into the fire. There was even a sense of open disappointment that the “shock and awe” was not more flashy. We were still being told not to look at what was actually happening, but in an interesting twist, the spectacle of burning cities was used as a tool for deception and distraction. We were under orders to stare directly into the burning cities and ask no questions, and thereby live happily ever after, with eyes burned to an unblinking crisp.

Some people seem to enjoy that “super bowl” feeling.

But help is on the way — Bill O’Reilly has promised to step forward and heal the blind, to turn their faces away from the hypnotic flames and quell their irrational apeshit passions.